Patent Application
20170324140
This invention relates generally to a thin film, flexible, wideband antenna configured on a dielectric substrate and, more particularly, to a thin film, flexible, wideband co-planar waveguide (CPW) antenna that may include transparent conductors so as to allow the antenna to be adhered to a visible part of vehicle glass, where the antenna is operable to receive right-hand circularly polarized signals for GPS/GNSS frequency bands or left-hand circularly polarized signals for satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) frequency bands.
Modern vehicles employ various and many types of antennas to receive and transmit signals for different communications systems, such as terrestrial radio (AM/FM), cellular telephone, satellite radio, dedicated short range communications (DSRC), GPS, etc. Further, cellular telephone is expanding into 4G long term evolution (LTE) that requires two antennas to provide multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signals. The antennas used for these systems are often mounted to a roof of the vehicle so as to provide maximum reception capability. Further, many of these antennas are often integrated into a common structure and housing mounted to the roof of the vehicle, such as a “shark-fin” roof mounted antenna module. As the number of antennas on a vehicle increase, the size of the structures required to house all of the antennas in an efficient manner and providing maximum reception capability also increases, which interferes with the design and styling of the vehicle. Because of this, automotive engineers and designers are looking for other suitable areas on the vehicle to place antennas that may not interfere with vehicle design and structure.
One of those areas is the vehicle glass, such as the vehicle windshield, which has benefits because glass typically makes a good dielectric substrate for an antenna. For example, it is known in the art to print AM and FM antennas on the glass of a vehicle where the printed antennas are fabricated within the glass as a single piece. However, these known antennas are generally limited in that they can only be placed in a vehicle windshield or other glass surface in areas where viewing through the glass is not necessary.
For those antennas that receive satellite signals, such as GPS, GNSS, SDARS, GLONASS, satellite radio, etc., the transmitted signals are left-hand or right-hand circularly polarized because the ionosphere acts to rotate the transmitted signal, which would otherwise affect linearly polarized signals. Thus, there is a need for a suitable antenna capable of being mounted on vehicle glass and being applicable to receive right-hand or left-hand circularly polarized signals.
The present invention discloses and describes a thin film, flexible antenna that has particular application to be adhered to a dielectric substrate on a vehicle, such as a vehicle glass, where the antenna has a wideband antenna geometry and is operable to receive right-hand or left-hand circularly polarized signals from, for example, GPS and SDARS satellites. The antenna is a printed planar antenna formed to the substrate and includes a ground plane having an outer perimeter portion defining a slot therein and having a plurality of sides. A T-line tuning stub extends from one of the sides into the slot, a curved spur-line tuning stub extends from a corner where two sides of the perimeter portion meet and extends into the slot, and a radiating element electrically isolated from the perimeter portion extends into the slot. The perimeter portion is operable to generate circularly polarized signals to be received by the radiating element where the tuning stubs provide phase tuning of the circularly polarized signals.
Additional features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The following discussion of the embodiments of the invention directed to a thin film, flexible wideband antenna suitable to be adhered to a curved dielectric structure is merely exemplary in nature, and is in no way intended to limit the invention or its applications or uses. For example, the discussion herein talks about the antenna being applicable to be adhered to automotive glass. However, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the antenna will have application for other dielectric structures other than automotive structures and other than transparent or translucent surfaces.
As will be discussed in detail below, the present invention proposes providing a thin film, flexible, wideband CPW antenna structure mountable on the windshield 16, the rear window 18, or any other window or dielectric substrate on the vehicle 10, where the antenna structure is flexible to conform to the shape of the particular dielectric structure, and where the antenna structure can be mounted at any suitable location on the dielectric structure, including locations on the windshield 16 that the vehicle driver needs to see through. The antenna structure has particular application for receiving circularly polarized signals, such as GPS and SDARS signals. In one embodiment, the antenna structure is a wideband monopole appliqué antenna that is installed directly on the surface of the dielectric structure by a suitable adhesive. The antenna structure can be designed to operate on automotive glass of various physical thicknesses and dielectric properties, where the antenna structure operates as intended when installed on the glass or other dielectric since in the design process the glass or other dielectric is considered in the antenna geometry pattern development.
The antenna 30 can be formed by any suitable low-loss conductor, such as copper, gold, silver, silver ceramic, metal grid/mesh, etc. If the antenna 30 is at a location on the vehicle glass that requires the driver or other vehicle occupant to see through the glass, then the antenna conductor can be any suitable transparent conductor, such as indium tin oxide (ITO), silver nano-wire, zinc oxide (ZnO), etc. Performance of the antenna 30 when it is made of a transparent conductor could be enhanced by adding a conductive frame along the edges of the antenna 30 as is known in the art.
The thickness of automotive glass may vary over approximately 2.8 mm-5 mm and have a relative dielectric constant ∈r in the range of 4.5-7.0. The antenna 30 includes a single layer conductor and a co-planar waveguide (CPW) feed structure to excite the antenna radiator. The CPW feed structure can be configured for mounting the connector 38 in a manner appropriate for the CPW feed line or for a pigtail or a coaxial cable. When the connector 38 or the pigtail connection to the CPW line is completed, the antenna 30 can be protected with the passivation layer 36. In one embodiment, when the antenna 30 is installed on the glass, a backing layer of the transfer tape can be removed. By providing the antenna conductor on the inside surface of the vehicle windshield 22, degradation of the antenna 30 can be reduced from environmental and weather conditions.
As discussed above, it is desirable to provide antennas on vehicles that are transparent and can be integrated in a conformal manner to the curved windshield or vehicle glass. The present invention proposes an antenna structure that is operable to receive signals in the GPS or SDARS frequency bands with appropriate polarization when mounted or integrated on the vehicle glass. The antenna structure is shaped and patterned into a transparent conductor and a co-planar structure where both the antenna and ground conductors are printed on the same layer. The antenna can use low cost thin films made of transparent conductive oxides and silver nano-wires with a high conductivity metal frame surrounding the antenna elements.
In one embodiment, the antenna structure is a variation of a CPW fed square slot antenna with a T-line and spur-line to produce circularly polarized signals adapted for a curved surface of a vehicle glass.
When the antenna structure 40 receives GPS signals, currents are generated in the perimeter portion 54 and propagate around the slot 52. The tuning stubs 56 and 58 receive those currents and reflect them back into the perimeter portion 54, which changes the phase of the signals. The circular polarization is provided by a 90° phase difference between the currents propagating in perpendicular sections of the perimeter portion 54. The T-line tuning stub 56 provides coupling of the currents from the perimeter portion 54 to the radiating element 60. The length of the tuning stubs 56 and 64, the angle that the tuning stub 64 extends from the perimeter portion 54, etc., are all selectively optimized for the particular frequency band of interest. In this embodiment, the GPS signals are right-hand circularly polarized signals, and thus the currents propagate in a counter-clockwise direction. The T-line tuning stub 56 and the spur-line tuning stub 64 have different geometries and angles resulting in an improved impedance bandwidth of ˜30%, a 3-db axial ratio bandwidth of ˜16.3%, gain of 3 dBic, and an axial ratio beamwidth at the center frequency stretching over a range greater than +−45° for the GPS signals center at 1.575 GHz.
Any suitable feed structure can be employed for feeding the antenna element 70.
The embodiments discussed above for the co-planar circularly polarized antenna structures provides the advantages discussed, and can be positioned on the vehicle glass near a metal structure, such as a vehicle roof, because the outer perimeter portions 54 and 104 operate as a frequency selective surface that prevents surface waves from radiating outward therefrom in a manner understood by those skilled in the art. However, these designs do take up some real-estate and have additional copper patterning that is required for the ground plane. If conductive surfaces close to the antenna are not an issue, then other co-planar circularly polarized antenna structures can be provided that require less area and less ground metal. For example, another embodiment includes a co-planar waveguide sleeve monopole antenna structure that also has application to receive GPS and SDARS circularly polarized signals.
For GPS signals in the frequency band 1574.4-1576.4 MHz, the ground plane 122 can have a length of 80 mm and a width of 13.6 mm, the vertical portion 130 can have a length of 20 mm and the combined length of the horizontal portion 132 and the width of the vertical portion 144 can be 14 mm. Further, a gap 150 between the vertical portion 130 and the horizontal portion 142 can be 1.9167 mm, a gap 152 between the horizontal portion 132 and the horizontal portion 142 can be 0.8379 mm, a gap between the horizontal portion 132 and the vertical portion 144 can be 0.9080 mm, and a gap 156 between the horizontal portion 140 and the ground plane 122 can be 1.9774 mm.
The foregoing discussion discloses and describes merely exemplary embodiments of the present invention. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from such discussion and from the accompanying drawings and claims that various changes, modifications and variations can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the following claims.
This application claims the benefit of the priority date of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/332,628, titled, CPW-Fed Circularly Polarized Applique Antennas for GPS and SDARS Bands, filed May 6, 2016.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62332628 | May 2016 | US |
